The present invention generally relates to Internet commerce, and more particularly to methods, apparatus, and systems for calculating fees for online financial services.
The number of financial transactions over the Internet is growing rapidly, with the acceptance and growth of online commerce, online banking, and so forth. Typical electronic financial transactions can involve the use of credit cards, debit cards, and other electronic payment services for the payment of goods, services, bills, personal debts, foreign currency exchanges, donations, and so forth.
A number of companies offer electronic payment (or funds transfer) services, such as PayPal, Inc. of San Jose, Calif. Such electronic payment services naturally charge for the provision of such services, typically on a per-transaction basis, and often include fixed or static transaction charges. Thus, conventional transaction charges have been based on fixed dimensions of calculation that do not change over time or incur a significant cost to change. However, a need has arisen for the capability to easily adjust charges to adapt to new market conditions and/or to facilitate agreements with merchants.
Accordingly, there is a growing need for a flexible, extensible, dynamic, and auditable fee framework to address the problems of defining and assigning transaction charges for online financial services.